August Frederick Biehle

A versatile painter who worked in a variety of genres and styles, August Biehle was active in Cleveland for more than three-quarters of a century. Born in Cleveland in 1885 to German immigrant parents, he apprenticed at an early age to his father, a painter trained in Germany who produced decorative murals for fashionable homes.

In 1903 Biehle traveled to Europe to receive a formal art education. After a brief stint in Paris, he studied for two years at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. Returning to America, he attended evening classes at the Cleveland School of Art, 1906-9, studying with Frederick Gottwald. Although Biehle worked as a consultant for the Sherwin-Williams Paint Company, his interest in easel painting compelled him in 1910 to make a second trip to study in Munich, where he was impressed by the expressionist paintings of the Blue Rider group.

In the fall of 1912, after returning to Cleveland, Biehle exhibited his modernist paintings at the Rorimer-Brooks Studios and the Korner & Wood Galleries. To support himself, he worked as a commercial lithographer until he retired in 1952. Around 1913 he became friendly with William Sommer and joined the Kokoon Klub.

With Sommer and others he went on painting excursions to Berlin Heights, Ohio. Biehle participated in the exhibition of American modernists at the Taylor Gallery (1914). The following year his paintings were displayed in a solo exhibition at the Kokoon Klub, where he continued to show through the 1930s. Although his last solo exhibition was mounted in 1963, Biehle continued to exhibit in group shows through the late 1970s, including the annual May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1920-77).

He died in 1979, having had a career of nearly seventy years. His paintings have been in numerous exhibitions including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Butler Museum in Youngstown, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Whitney Museum in New York City.

biography courtesy of Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946, The Cleveland Museum of Art